Saturday, February 6, 2010

DNA Testing and Wrongful Convictions

This week, the Innocence Project released 250 Exonerated: Too Many Wrongfully Convicted detailing 250 exoneration cases along with statistics on common causes of the wrongful convictions. The release of the report coincided with the exoneration of Freddie Peacock, a 60 year old man from Rochester, New York wrongfully convicted of rape 33 years ago. The exoneration was the result of DNA testing in what the Innocence Project said is the 250th DNA exoneration in the United States. Convicted in 1976 of rape, Peacock was sentenced to 20 years in prison and released on parole in 1982. Even though no longer incarcerated, he fought to prove his innocence since he left prison 28 years ago. Some interesting findings in the report include:

DNA exonerations in 33 states and the District of Columbia

States with most DNA exoneration: New York (25), Texas (40) and Illinois (29)